


The Nightingale Chronicles: Stranger

by Losille



Series: The Nightingale Chronicles [1]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 06:45:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4596870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While spending Christmas in Scotland with his family, Tom invites a complete stranger to spend the holiday with them. </p><p>Prompt #1/100</p><p>***This is a part of a 100 prompt drabble challenge. Each update will be published as its own oneshot, though several of them will be written together for story arcs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nightingale Chronicles: Stranger

**Stranger**

Two minutes after Tom stepped into the tiny chip shop cum bakery cum grocer, the snow outside seemed to have doubled in intensity. The big white flakes had ceased their light-footed fairy dance in the bracing wind and become big plops of wet drudgery piling high in the small town’s roads. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it so bad this early in the winter.

With a sigh, he turned toward the till and drummed his hands on the counter. Standing on his toes, he leaned over the worn wooden surface, stretching his arms by pushing his palms flat against it. He bobbed his head up and down, trying to see around the overgrown Christmas display to find the rotund woman who had, presumably, disappeared to collect the order of fruitcakes his mum sent him to retrieve. Did it really take that long to find them in the back storage area? The shop barely had enough space to turn around in, much less an extensive storeroom.

If he waited any longer, the roads back to his father’s home would be near impassible, and he didn’t plan on missing the roast venison the cook had prepared for supper. His stomach growled at the thought of it. The smell of greasy, but delectable, fish and chips from the other side of the shop didn’t help matters, either, reminding him he hadn’t had anything to eat since his porridge that morning.

He groaned under his breath and rested a hip on the counter, impatiently tapping his foot on the tiled floor to the beat of the sleigh bells playing on the ancient radio across the room. A sudden interjection of electronic piano, however, threw him off the festive beat.

A soft voice floated across the small space—a feminine voice—and he realized for the first time that he wasn’t alone. The owner of the voice sat huddled in the corner at one of the two rickety folding tables the chip shop maintained as part of their ‘dining room’. On a bright and clear Christmas Eve Eve, they’d be full of the town gossips discussing politics in barely intelligible Highland brogues. Today they were empty, but for the lone woman, no doubt because any sane person was snuggled at home with their loved ones in the miserable weather.

“No, I can’t go to a hostel,” she said. “There are no hostels here, and besides that, what do you think I’d do with all my stuff?”

Tom strained to hear the other side of the conversation, but the volume on her mobile wasn’t high enough, so he took a moment to look her over. She didn’t appear to be too threatening. Small, black haired, reasonably unblemished skin, and a body hidden under multiple layers of too large clothing. He wondered if she wasn’t a drifter, considering the clothes looked as though they were made for another person and picked up at a local charity. They were, however, in good condition, but baggy on her slight frame. She’d stuffed her hair into a slouchy knit cap and hadn’t bothered with makeup, making her look younger and more innocent than she probably was. The annoyance from her conversation had materialized in big red blotches on her face.

“Yes, I’m fucking pissed off!” the woman exclaimed into the phone. She was also American. “It was your job to verify the booking and you didn’t do that before I left!”

His curiosity got the better of him. What kind of booking could she have had up here in such a small town? Nothing ever happened up here, except maybe a rowdy Saturday evening at the pub.

“Sad story, laddie. Best ye ignore it.”

Tom turned to the shopkeeper who had returned to her position behind the till.  Two large cake boxes sat there waiting for him. “Hmm?”

“The lassie,” the shopkeeper said. “Seems she got herself intae a wee snag. The lodgings she took for the holiday have nae heat.”

“What’s she doing up here anyway?”

“A job a some sort, havenae got that oot yet,” she said.

Tom frowned and glanced back at the woman now sitting with her arms folded and laid across the table, her forehead lowered and pressed against them so that her face was hidden. Why hadn’t anyone offered to help her out? It was Christmas, for crying out loud. American she may have been, but nothing operated up here during the week before or after Christmas, much less in the current weather conditions. The shopkeeper knew it, so why hadn’t she done anything to help?

He did the only Christian thing he could think of: dug his mobile out of his pocket and called his father. He picked up on the second ring. “Ah, there you are! Your mother has been worried sick about you in this blizzard. Where are you?”

“Still in town.”

“Well it would serve her right for sending you out for those bloody fruitcakes if you were stuck in town,” he replied.

“I’m endeavoring not to be stuck, Da,” Tom sighed. “Is the cottage still open?”

His father waffled about in his typically blustery Lowlands brogue. “Well, aye, of course. You’re not thinking of moving out there, are ye?”

“Not exactly. Will you send someone to turn the heat on and get the fire going? I’ll be back soon.” Tom didn’t wait for his father to reply, knowing there would be questions, but that it would be done anyway. His main concern now was convincing a complete stranger to follow him even deeper into the Scottish Highlands, to a strange family’s home, and stay in one of their cottages for the holiday. Because that didn’t scream serial murderer at all.

He slipped the mobile back in his pocket and took a total of five steps over to the table where the woman sat. She must have heard or felt him there, because she lifted her head and blinked her eyes at him. She was just about ready to ignore him—the words already formed on her lips to shoo him away—when she did the telltale double take of someone who had recognized him.

“Um… hi?”

He smiled. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear…”

She sat back in her seat and preened a bit, though it didn’t help. She still looked very plain. “Nothing’s a secret up here, is it?”

“Best not to talk to anyone if you don’t want the whole town knowing your business,” Tom replied. Which probably didn’t bode well for this interaction. If this woman left with him, the rumors would be endless. But he didn’t care. He saw no reason for anyone to suffer alone in a freezing cold flat—was it a flat?—during Christmas when his family had more than enough to share.

“So I shouldn’t talk to you, either?”

He laughed. “You catch on quick.”

Her lips finally split in a small chuckle, though the watery, wavy emotion in her voice was unmistakable. “I’m fine. I’ll make do. I always do.”

“Well, I know it may seem all very untoward, but if you’d like, you can ‘make do’ in a place that at least has heat. We have a small cottage on our property that has your name on it—”

“You don’t even know my name,” she murmured. “So how can it have my name on it?”

“We’re a family of psychics,” he said without missing a beat, but extended his hand. “Tom Hiddleston.”

“I know.” She slipped a delicate, fine boned hand into his. “Philomena Smith. Mena, though.”

He resorted to his knowledge base to charm her. “Ah! ‘Philomel, with melody, sing in our sweet lullaby’.”

Mena seemed entirely indifferent to his ready recall of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. “Do you really resort to Shakespeare all time? Is that your only thing to impress women?”

A normal man, who had been summarily chastised by a strange woman, would have hightailed it in the other direction.  He, however, remained beside her, feet planted on the ground with no intention of letting her brusque attitude turn him away.

“Listen, we’ve got a comfortable bed, heat, and probably too much family togetherness for anyone’s taste, but it’s someplace better than sitting in a greasy chip shop licking your wounds,” he said. “We’ve got to get going, though—the sun will be down soon and I’m utter rubbish driving through heavy snow.”

“Because that certainly makes me want to jump right into your car with you,” she mused though she began stuffing her things into the messenger bag beside her. “My luggage is across the way.”

He nodded and pointed outside. “See that dark green Land Rover?

She craned her neck around and finally had to stand up to see through the frosty shop windows. “Yes.”

“That’s me. I’ll put my fruitcakes away and you go get your things.” He smiled. “You’re taller than I thought you would be.”

“Everyone says that.”

The sarcasm in her voice made him laugh.

Slinging her bag on her shoulder, she paused and looked at him. “Are you really sure about this?”

“Very,” he said.

She shrugged and left him standing in the shop, listening the bells jingling on the door.  He watched her pick her way through the slushy mess in the road and let herself into a rundown building across the street. It didn’t even look habitable, much less a place only suffering from a broken heater.

Tom returned to the till and picked up the cakes. He balanced them in his hands and nodded at the shopkeeper, who had watched the whole scene with rapt interest. “Thank you.”

“I wouldna do it,” she said, “but the lassie seems thankful.”

He smiled and waved, stepping out into the bone chilling snow. The reality of what he had done did not sink in until he was waiting for her to reappear. Nor had he really taken into account the fact that his family might not be overjoyed at the new addition or that this could be the biggest cock up if she sold a story to a tabloid. He didn’t know anything about her except her name. _She_ could be an axe murder for all he knew. 

Fuck. What _had_ he done? 

But he supposed it didn’t really matter to him at that point. He was already in for a penny. Might as well be in for a pound. 

He just hoped it wasn’t for a pound of flesh.


End file.
